Like a cobweb, there is an interconnectedness that linked us the four original founders of Newswatch namely Dele Giwa, Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu. Dan, Yakubu and Ray schooled at the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos in the 70s. Yakubu, Dele and Ray worked in the Concord Group of Newspapers in the 80s. All four of us were active toilers in the garden of journalism for many years before we decided that it was time to break the monopoly of government and the moneyed class in the entrepreneurship of the publishing industry. We did not really know what awaited us. It was a gamble, the equivalent of flying blind but we were ready to fly in the belief that our interconnectedness, our friendship and our professionalism would see us through. So we moved fiercely from being friends to being founders.
Three of us — Yakubu, Dele and Ray — travelled to London for a meeting with Yakubu’s friend Alhaji Yusufu, who had promised financial support to us for the establishment of our own publication. Before we got to London Dele had suggested that we call our potential publication Newswatch. We agreed. When we got to London, Yusufu suggested that we call the publishing company Cardinal Communications Limited. We agreed. On our return to Nigeria we conveyed to Dan the decisions we had taken in London. Dan wisely suggested that since we had already agreed on Newswatch as the name of the magazine, it was appropriate to call the company Newswatch Communications Limited. We agreed because of the potenetial mutual reinforcement between the magazine and the company. That is how the company’s name came about.
Dele, who was the Editor of the Sunday Concord, had a problem with the Publisher, Chief M. K. O Abiola. Dan, who was Editor of the New Nigerian, also had a problem with the New Nigerian management. Both of them were ready to take their exit from these organisations. Yakubu and I had a meeting and agreed that we should make the two men leaders of our new outfit so that their employers that treated them nastily will know that we had a better view of them than they did. We presented our decision to the two men. They both thanked us profusely for our magnanimity because they knew that our decision was not based on either inferiority or superiority complex since all the four of us had edited various newspapers before our desire to be media entrepreneurs. That decision was the first building block for corporate harmony. The second building block was that all four of us, without exception, would write columns for the magazine. The third building block was that all four of us would earn equal salaries and allowances. The fourth building block was that we would run the magazine and the company democratically by voting where necessary. If there was a tie in the voting the chairman of the meeting would break the tie with a casting vote. All of these blocks helped us to erect an architecture that was reasonably solid for 27 years.
The solidity of our relationship also came from the fact that none of us was a religious or ethnic irredentist. Three of us were Christians, while Yakubu was, and is, a muslim. But none of us was an extremist. We all practised our faith reasonably, responsibly. The four of us came from four different ethnic groups. No two persons spoke the same mother tongue. The only currency of communication that we all used was English. That, too, helped to cement our relationship and prevented any one of us from being a religious or ethnic bigot. These attributes increased the acreage of our understanding of each other and limited areas of our disagreement.
All of us had practised journalism in the 70s and 80s when the Editor was a certified dictator. He and he alone largely determined the content of a newspaper’s front and back pages. The Editor in those days was the Lord of the Manor, the King in the Kingdom of Journalism. But at Newswatch, we saw that this was a defect that needed to be corrected because there is no human being without foibles, without imperfections and without defects. So we opted for the democratisation of news management. We decided on choosing cover stories by voting even though the Editor-in-Chief would have a casting vote in the event of a tie. This worked for us without acrimony because it meant that if the decision was arrived at by that process it was a decision we could jointly defend.
At Newswatch, we also agreed to assess our editorial staff by awarding marks for cover stories, section lead stories and other stories published in the magazine under the byline of any editorial staff. At the end of the year, each of our staff knew whether he or she had done well enough to be deserving of upliftment or not. That was the fairest way of editorial staff assessment.
Dan was older than all of us in age and in journalism but he treated us with respect and decency as if we were equals. That is because of who he was, a decent man. We, too, returned the favour in delightful reciprocity. He was also a very humble man even though he came from a royal family. He never wore royalty on his forehead. He never called himself Prince or Chief or High Chief. It was much later, in fact recently, that most of us knew about his royal credentials because of his self-effacedness. He was never boastful like a rainless thunder and never ever said to any of us: “Do you know who I am”? He never resided on Mount Sinai and did not display any sign of superiority complex. He was always calm, ice-calm even under provocation and did not display the temper of a wasp. That made things to go smoothly under his leadership as the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch. The stability of his temper made it possible for him to direct the editorial staff evenhandedly. When one of the senior editorial staff lost a loved one, she applied for leave to go home and bury the loved one. Dan just told her, ‘just go and bury your loved one, and come back, no leave. If I give you leave you will spend too much time mourning. That will not be good for you’. Wise words from a wise man. The staff was eminently grateful for that soothing strategy at a moment of mourning.
Dan was not just an Editor, he was also a mentor. As a celebrated columnist, he wanted his editors to climb the writing ladder and become good columnists like him. But column writing is the ultimate test of good writing because its portfolio must include wit, wisdom, anecdotes, humour, philosophy, logic, graceful and seductive arrangement of words to captivate and hypnotise the reader. His editors failed the test and he stopped them from trying but he remained their caring mentor.
Dan’s journalism was admirably simple and simply admirable. He did not go for grandiloquence, the quest for highfalutin words and expressions intended to impress the uninitiated. He did not go for long, complex and complicated sentences and expressions. Even though he was a wordsmith, he preferred short, one word sentences that sparkled. Even when he had to treat subjects that were esoteric, he made them sound less esoteric, not pedantic. He deprived the subject of its inherent pomposity. Instead, he broke the subject into bite sizes to improve clarity and reduce indigestion. His writing goal was to express, not to impress but in expressing his opinion simply and clearly, he impressed a lot of his readers who loved reader-friendly, graceful and accessible writing.
Dan was not an apostle of guerilla journalism, that vile version of propaganda that some media persons introduced into the media in Nigeria some years ago. No one taught anyone guerilla journalism in journalism school. It is not featured in any journalism textbook because it derides fact-checking and truth telling. It is yellow journalism. Even when some of our editors said to Dan: “Sir, let’s jazz it up”, meaning let us sensationalise, Dan would ask them whether they were taught that in journalism school. No reply. Case closed.
What we chose to practise at Newswatch was journalism, credible journalism, factual reporting because, as you know, facts are sacred while comment is free. It is always best to speak or write the truth unless you are an exceptionally good liar. And journalism is not about lie-telling. It is about fact-checking and truth-telling. The New Yorker magazine employs seven full time fact checkers; Readers Digest employs 20 fact-checkers. They have done so for years, even when fact-checking was not in vogue around the journalism world. They did so to make their practice credible. At Newswatch, we established what we called the three source rule. For us to publish any important story, it must be confirmed by at least three credible sources. That was one way of doing the job professionally.
At Newswatch, we taught our staff what had come to be known as the New Journalism, a blend of investigative and interpretative reporting. New Journalism was pioneered by Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Robert Lipsyte and E. W. Johnson and popularised by Esquire magazine. It is journalism that reads like a novel but not a blend of fact and fiction which is called faction. It is an enduring piece of literary non-fiction. It is written in a way that the reader does not ask, “who made this up”?. It is written in a seductive fashion to woo and win the reader, so that at the end of the article, he finds himself saying to himself, “why did it end so soon”?
At Newswatch, we added a new sauce by introducing what we called Preface to Cover. When I suggested it to Dele, he asked that I should write the first two for the magazine. That way other writers would understand its topography. I did. Preface to Cover was our appetiser to the main meal, the cover story. Preface to Cover was a philosophical essay, the literary equivalent of deep sea fishing, the attempt to catch a trout. It added immense value to our cover stories. Dan was one of the few writers in the company that sank their teeth into this arena.
The basic reason that we stepped out of regular employment to start our own publication was to be able to practise journalism the way we thought it should be practised. Journalism is a profession which has fulfilled the five attributes of any profession. The five attributes of any profession are that it must have: (a) A body of knowledge (b) Entry standards (c) Canons of professional practice (d) Code of ethics (e) Regulatory agencies that can punish infractions.
Dan was not scared of the sting and clash of battle even during the difficult days of military rule, when the dictators wanted to stay forever and enjoy the honey pot of our commonwealth. He showed courage, exemplary courage. In those 27 years of our practice before we retired, the practice of journalism was the equivalent of jogging in the jungle where there were many landmines. We were in and out of various court rooms. We were in and out of various detention centres for no just cause. Our company’s accounts were frozen. Our personal accounts were blocked. Our phones were bugged. Security agents were planted among our staff. But we were not deterred. We published exclusively the Cookey Report that was meant to be the road map to democracy during Ibrahim Babangida’s administration. We were punished by the proscription of our magazine. We published an interview, conducted by Dan, with David Mark where the man blew the whistle on Sani Abacha’s hidden agenda to stay in power forever. Three of us — Dan, Yakubu and Ray — were tried for mutiny, yes mutiny, an offence that is the province of soldiers and other military personnel. That is part of the madness that manacled the media in Nigeria in those days.
One of the happy events of our Newswatch days was that one of the senior editorial staff who displayed an admirable level of professionalism and loyalty was rewarded by being lifted from the newsroom to the boardroom. I was eminently impressed by Soji Akinrinade’s management of his portfolio as General Editor, his work rate and loyalty and I decided to compensate him. I suggested to Dan and Yakubu that we should push for him to become a member of the Board of Newswatch Communications Limited. They agreed. I took the idea to the board and got a nod. Dele’s death had reduced our number at the board to three. Now, we were four journalists at the board again. The interesting thing to note is that even with Soji becoming part of the triumvirate, there was no commonality of mother tongue among us. The currency of communication remained English. We still enjoyed abundant harmony at the level of the Executive Directorate. This harmony seeped into the newsroom too and this made the job of our newsroom managers less tedious, less tasking.
People have asked me what is the magic for our long survival together. I tell them it is friendship that we have built over the years. They say that ours is unique because friendships hardly last in Nigeria. I agree. They ask whether we do have disagreements. I answer: “Of course, which two or more educated persons can work together without arguments and disagreements”? The difference in our own case is that, after disagreeing, we agree to keep our eyes on the ball and move on. Our disagreements never lasted for a full day before our reaching a resolution. That is maturity, I think. And when we retired from Newswatch Communications Limited on 5 May 2011, many people must have thought that we would go our separate ways. We didn’t. We formed a new company and decided to do what we are accustomed to doing in the writing vineyard. We are an orchestra. There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together.
Dan’s death reminds us of what Jules Renard said, that “death has this consolation. It frees us from the thought of death”. Dan is now free from the thought of death. It is we who are living who are not free. I cannot tell Dan’s loved ones not to cry. They can cry because his death has left a gap in their lives. The wife, Rose, is now husbandless. The six children are now fatherless. The seven grandchildren are now grandfatherless. But I say to them, “don’t cry too much”. The praises piled on Dan by various people including President Bola Tinubu since his death ought to pump your adrenalin as happy inheritors of his illustrious legacy, so rejoice, celebrate. Look at it this way. Dan lived to be 81 years in a country where the longevity age is 56 years only. He had an adorable wife, six well educated children, including a Professor of Mass Communication and seven lovely grandchildren. He was an iconic journalist, editor and columnist. He was an author of several books, one of which is a recommended text in one of the universities. His writing style is being studied in some of the universities in Nigeria. He was a nationalist, patriot and unifier. That is why he never practised what is called Afghanistanism by journalism experts. Afghanistanism is the desire by some journalists to run away from writing on problems at home for fear of being victimised. Instead, they write radiantly on problems in an unknown territory called Afghanistan. Dan did not do Afghanistanism. He wrote on Nigerian problems with vigour.
Dan’s departure happens at a time that journalism is in the doldrums occasioned by the arrival of new technology, Artificial Intelligence and social media gymnastics, all of which have compounded the practice of credible and responsible journalism. The good thing is that iconic leaders of the profession such as Uncle Sam Amuka, Chief Segun Osoba, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, Mallam Kabiru Yusuf and other prominent members of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Journalists have now approved a compass to the future. They have approved a new Code of Ethics and established an Ombudsman architecture for all media organisations as well as a national Ombudsman Committee. That committee is made up of eminent practitioners and scholars. They need our undiluted backing for the recovery of our profession from the jaws of unprofessionalism.
That is the best tribute that we journalists can pay to Dan.
My brother Dan, goodbye.
A tribute on Dan Agbese’s admirable legacy delivered by Ray Ekpu on behalf of Newswatch Communications Limited at a tribute session in his honour in Lagos on 15 December 2025
